The Yoga-Vasishtha Maharamayana of Valmiki, vol. 3 (of 4) part 2 (of 2)-2

12. Seeing the forms of outward things, the intelligent man

never takes them to his mind; it is the ignorant only, that set

their minds to the worthless things of this world.

13. They are glad to long after what they approve of, for

their trouble only in this world; but he who takes these things

as nothing, remains free from the pleasure and pain of having

or not having them. (So said the wise Socrates:—How many

things are here, which I do not want).

14. The apparent difference of the world and the soul of the[Pg 17]

world, is as false in reality, as the meaning of the words sky

and skies, which though taken in their singular and plural senses,

still denote the same uniform vacuity. (So the one soul is viewed

as many in appearance only).

15. He who remains with the internal purity of his vacant

mind, although he observes the customary differences of external

things, remains yet as unaffected by the feelings of pain and

pleasure, as the insensible block of wood and stone (with his

stoical indifference in joy and grief).

16. He who sees his blood-thirsty enemy in the light of a

true friend, is the person that sees rightly into the nature of

things. (Because the killers of our lives, are the givers of our

immortality).

17. As the river uproots the big trees on both its sides, by its

rapid currents and deluge; so doth the dispassionate man destroys

the feelings of his joy and grief to their very roots.

18. The sage that knows not the nature of the passions and

affections, and does not guard himself from their impulse and

emotions, is unworthy of the veneration, which awaits upon the

character of saints and sages.

19. He who has not the sense of his egoism, and whose mind

is not attached to this world; saves his soul from death and confinement,

after his departure from this world. (There is a similar

text in the Bhagavadgítá, and it is hard to say which is the

original one and which is the copy).

20. The belief in one's personality, is as false as one's faith in

an unreality, which does not exist; and this wrong notion of its

existence, is removed only by one's knowledge of the error, and

his riddance from it.

21. He who has extinguished the ardent desire of his mind,

like the flame of an oilless lamp; and who remains unshaken

under all circumstances, stands as the image of a mighty conqueror

of his enemies in painting or statue.

22. O Ráma! that man is said to be truly liberated, who is

unmoved under all circumstances, and has nothing to gain or lose

in his prosperity or adversity, nor any thing to elate or depress

him in either state.

[Pg 18]

CHAPTER IV.

Argument.—Vasishtha exposes the evils of selfish views parág-drishti,

and exalts the merit of elevated views pratyag-drishti.

VASISHTHA continued:—Ráma! knowing your mind, understanding,

egoism and all your senses, to be insensible of

themselves, and deriving their sensibility from the intellect; say

how can your living soul and the vital breaths, have any sensation

of their own.

2. It is the one great soul, that infuses its power to those

different organs; as the one bright sun dispenses his light, to all

the various objects in their diverse colours.

3. As the pangs of the poisonous thirst after worldly enjoyments,

come to an end; so the insensibility of ignorance, flies

away like darkness at the end of the night.

4. It is the incantation of spiritual knowledge only, that is

able to heal the pain of baneful avarice; as it is in the power of

autumn only, to dispel the clouds of the rainy-season.

5. It is the dissipation of ignorance, which washes the

mind of its attendant desires; as it is the disappearance of the

rainy weather, which scatters the clouds in the sky.

6. The mind being weakened to unmindfulness, loses the

chain of its desires from it; as a necklace of pearls being loosened

from its broken string, tosses the precious gems all about the

ground.

7. Ráma! they that are unmindful of the sástras, and mind

to undermine them; resemble the worms and insects, that mine

the ground wherein they remain.

8. The fickle eye-sight of the idle and curious gazer on all

things, becomes motionless after their ignorant curiosity is over

and has ceased to stir; as the shaking lotus of the lake becomes

steady, after the gusts of wind have passed away and stopped.

9. You have got rid, O Ráma! of your thought of all entities

and non-entities, and found your steadiness in the ever-steady[Pg 19]

unity of God; as the restless winds mix at last with the calm

vacuum (after their blowing and breathing over the solid earth,

and in the hollow sky).

10. I ween you have been awakened to sense, by these series

of my sermons to you; as kings are awakened from their nightly

sleep, by the sound of their eulogists and the music of timbrels.

11. Seeing that common people of low understandings, are

impressed by the preachings of their parish parsons; I have

every reason to believe that my sermons must make their impression,

upon the good understanding of Ráma.

12. As you are in the habit of considering well, the good

counsel of others in your mind; so I doubt not, that my counsel

will penetrate your mind, as the cool rain-water enters into the

parched ground of the earth.

13. Knowing me as your family priest, and my family as the

spiritual guides of Raghus race for ever; you must receive with

regard my good advices to you, and set my words as a neck-chain

to your heart.

[Pg 20]

CHAPTER V.

Argument.—Ráma's relation to Vasishtha, of his perfect rest in godliness.

RÁMA said:—O my venerable guide! My retrospection of

your sermons, has set my mind to perfect rest, and I see

the traps and turmoils of this world before me, with a quite

indifferent and phlegmatic mind.

2. My soul has found its perfect tranquillity in the Supreme

Spirit, is as the parched ground is cooled by a snow or of rainfall

after a long and painful drought.

3. I am as cool as coldness itself, and feel the felicity of an

entire unity in myself; and my mind has become as tranquil and

transparent, as the limpid lake that is undisturbed by elephants.

4. I see the whole plenum of the universe, O sage! in its

pristine pure light; and as clear as the face of the wide extended

firmament, without the dimness of frost or mist.

5. I am now freed from my doubts, and exempted from the

mirage of the world; I am equally aloof from affections, and

have become as pure and serene, as the lake and sky in autumn.

6. I have found that transport in my inmost soul, which

knows no bound nor decay; and have the enjoyment of that gusto,

which defies the taste of the ambrosial draught of gods.

7. I am now set in the truth of actual existence, and my repose

in the joyous rest of my soul. I have become the delight of

mankind and my own joy in myself, which makes me thank my

felicitous self, and you also for giving me this blessing. (The

Sruti says, Heavenly bliss is the delight of men, and the heartfelt

joy of every body).

8. My heart has become as expanded and pure, as the expanse

of limpid lakes in autumn; and my mind hath become as cold

and serene, as the clear and humid sky in the season of autumn.

9. Those doubts and coinings of imagination, which mislead

the blind, have now fled afar from me; as the fear of ghosts

appearing in the dark, disappear at the light of day-break.

[Pg 21]

10. How can there be the speck or spot of impurity, in the

pure and enlightened soul; and how can the doubts of the objective

nature, arise in the subjective mind? All these errors vanish

to naught, like darkness before moon light.

11. All these appearances appearing in various forms, are

but the diverse manifestations of the self-same soul; it is therefore

a fallacy to suppose, this is one thing and that another, by

our misjudgment of them.

12. I smile to think in myself, the miserable slave of my

desires that I had been before; that am now so well satisfied

without them. (The privation of desire gives greater satisfaction

than its fulfilment).

13. I remember now how my single and solitary self, is one

and all with the universal soul of the world; since I received

my baptism with the ambrosial fluid of thy words.

14. O the highest and holiest station, which I have now

attained to; and from where I behold the sphere of the sun, to

be situated as low as the infernal region.

15. I have arrived at the world of sober reality and existence,

from that of unreality and seeming existence. I therefore

thank my soul, that has became so elevated and adorable with

its fulness of the Deity.

16. O venerable Sage:—I am now situated in everlasting

joy, and far removed from the region of sorrow; by the sweet

sound of the honeyed words, which have crept like humming

bees, into the pericarp of my lotus-like heart.

[Pg 22]

CHAPTER VI.

Argument:—Prevalence and influence of delirium (moha).

VASISHTHA Continued—Hear me moreover to tell you, my

dear Ráma, some excellent sayings for your good, and also

for the benefit of every one of my audience here.

2. Though you are unlike others, in the greater enlightenment

of your understanding; yet my lecture will equally edify

your knowledge, as that of the less enlightened men than yourself.

3. He who is so senseless as to take his body for the soul, is

soon found to be upset by his unruly senses; as a charioteer is

thrown down by his head-strong and restive horses. (So says

the Sruti also. "The soul is the charioteer of the vehicle of the

body, and the senses are as its horses").

4. But the Sapient man who knows the bodiless soul and

relies therein, has all his senses under the subjection of his soul;

and they do not overthrow him, as obstinate horses do their

riders.

5. He who praises no object of enjoyment, but rather finds

fault with all of them, and discerns well their evils; enjoys the

health of his body without any complaint. (The voluptuary is

subject to diseases, but the abstinent is free from them; for in

the midst of pleasure there is pain).

6. The soul has no relation with the body, nor is the body

related with the soul; they are as unrelated to each other as the

light and shade. (And are opposed to one another as sun-light

and darkness).

7. The discrete soul is distinct from concrete matter, and

free from material properties and accidents; the soul is ever shining

and does not rise or set as the material sun and moon (and it

never changes as the everchanging objects of changeful nature

and mind).

8. The body is a dull mass of vile matter, it is ignorant of

itself and its own welfare; it is quite ungrateful to the soul, that[Pg 23]

makes it sensible; therefore it well deserves its fate of diseases

and final dissolution. (The body is frail, and is at best but a

fading flower).

9. How can the body be deemed an intelligent thing, when

the knowledge of the one (i.e., the soul) as intelligence, proves

the other (i.e., the body) to be but a dull mass. They cannot

both be intelligent, when the nature of the one is opposite to that

of the other; and if there is no difference between them, they

would become one and the same thing (i.e. the soul equal with

the body, which is impossible).

10. But how is it then, that they mutually reciprocate their

feelings of pain and pleasure to one another, unless they are the

one and the same thing, and participating of the same properties?

(This is a presumptive objection of the antagonistic doctrine,

touching the co-relation of the mind and body).

11. It is impossible, Ráma, for the reciprocation of their

feelings, that never agree in their natures; the gross body has

no connection with the subtile soul, nor has the rarefied soul any

relation with the solid body. (It is the gross mind that sympathises

with the body, and not the unconnected spirit or soul).

12. The presence of the one, nullifies the existence of the

opposite other; as in the cases of day and night, of darkness and

light, and of knowledge and ignorance (which are destructive of

their opposites).

13. The unbodied soul presides over all bodies, without its

adherence to any; as the omnipresent spirit of Brahma, pervades

throughout all nature, without coalescing with any

visible object. (The spirit of God resides in all, and is yet quite

detached from everything).

14. The embodied soul is as unattached to the body, as the

dew drop on the lotus leaf is disjoined with the leaf; and as the

divine spirit is quite unconnected with everything, which it fills

and supports.

15. The Soul residing in the body, is as unaffected by its

affections, as the sky remains unmoved, by the motion of the

winds raging in its bosom. It is figuratively said, that tempests[Pg 24]

rend the skies, and the passions rend their recipient bosom; but

nothing can disturb the empty vacuity of the sky or soul.

16. Knowing your soul to be no part of your body, rest

quietly in it to eternity; but believing yourself as the body, be

subject to repeated transmigrations of it in endless forms.

17. The visibles are viewed as the rising and falling waves,

in the boundless ocean of the Divine soul; but reliance in the

supreme soul, will show the light of the soul only.

18. This bodily frame is the product of the Divine soul, as

the wave is produced of the water of the sea; and though the

bodies are seen to move about as waves, yet their receptacle the

soul is ever as steady as the sea;—the reservoir of the moving

waves.

19. The body is the image of the soul, as the sun seen in

the waves is the reflection of that luminary; and though the body

like the reflected sun, is seen to be moving and waving, yet its

archetype—the soul, is ever as steady as the fixed and unfluctuating

sun in the sky.

20. The error of the substantiality and stability of the body

is put to flight, no sooner the light of the permanent and spiritual

Substratum of the soul, comes to shine over our inward sight.

(Knowledge of the immaterial and immortal soul, removes the

blunder of the material and mortal body).

21. The body appears to be in the act of constant motion

and rotation like a wheel, to the partial and unspiritual observers

of materialism; and it is believed by them to be perpetually

subject to birth and death, like the succession of light and darkness.

(Lit.:—As candle light and darkness follow each other, so

is the body produced and dissolved by turns).

22. These unspiritual men, that are unconscious of their

souls; are as shallow and empty minded, as arjuna trees; which

grow without any pith and marrow within them.

23. Dull headed men that are devoid of intelligence, are as

contemptible as the grass on the ground; and they move their

limbs like the blades of grass, which are moved by force of the

passing wind (and by direction of the Judging mind). Those

that are unacquainted with the intelligent soul, resemble the[Pg 25]

senseless and hollow bamboos, which shake and whistle by breath

of the winds alone. (The internal air moves the body and the

limbs, as the external breeze shakes the trees).

24. The unintelligent body and limbs, are actuated to perform

and display their several acts, by action of the vital breath; as

the vacillation of the insensible trees and leaves, is caused by

the motion of the breeze; and both of them cease to move, no

sooner the current airs cease to agitate them.

25. These dull bodies are as the boisterous waves of the sea,

heaving with huge shapes with tremendous noise; and appearing

to sight as the figures of drunken men, staggering with draughts

of the luscious juice of Vine.

26. These witless men resemble the rapid currents of rivers,

which without a jot of sense in them, keep up on their continual

motion, to no good to themselves or others.

27. It is from their want of wit, that they are reduced to utmost

meanness and misery; which make them groan and sigh

like the blowing bellows of the blacksmith.

28. Their continued motion is of no real good to themselves,

but brings on their quietus like the calm after the storm; they

clash and clang like the twang of the bowstring, without the

dart to hit at the mark.

29. The life of the unintelligent man, is only for its extinction

or death; and its desire of fruition is as false, as the fruit of an

unfruitful tree in the woody forest.

30. Seeking friendliness in unintelligent men, is as wishing

to rest or sleep on a burning mountain; and the society of the

unintellectual, is as associating with the headless trunks of trees

in a forest (The weak headed man like the headless tree, can

neither afford any sheltering shade, nor nourishing fruit to the

passenger. So the verse: It is vain to expect any good or gain,

from men of witless and shallow brain).

31. Doing any service to the ignorant and lack witted men

goes for nothing; and is as vain as beating the bush or empty

air with a stick: and any thing given to the senseless, is as

something thrown into the mud. (Or as casting pearls before the

swine, or scattering grains in the bushes).

[Pg 26]

32. Talking with the ignorant, is as calling the dogs from

a distance (which is neither heard nor heeded by them). Ignorance

is the seat of evils, which never betide the sensible and

the wise. (So the Hitopadesa—A hundred evils and thousand

fears, daily befall to the fool, and not to the heedful wise).

33. The wise pass over all errors in their course amidst the

world; but the ignorant are exposed to incessant troubles, in

their ceaseless ardour to thrive in the pleasures of life.

34. As the carriage wheel revolves incessantly, about the axle

to which it is fixed; so the body of man turns continually about

the wealthy family, to which the foolish mind is fixed for gain.

35. The ignorant fool can never get rid of his misery, so

long as he is fast bound to the belief of taking his body as his

soul, and knowing no spiritual soul besides.

36. How is it possible for the infatuated, to be freed from

their delusion; when their minds are darkened by illusion, and

their eyes are blind-folded, by the hood-wink of unreal appearance.

37. The seeing man or looker on sights, that regales his eyes

with the sight of unrealities; is at last deluded by them, as a man

is moonstruck by fixing his eyes on the moon, and becomes giddy

with the profuse fragrance of flowers.

38. As the watering of the ground, tends to the growth of grass

and thorns and thistles; so the fostering of the body, breeds

the desires in the heart, as thick as reptiles grow in the hollow

of trees; and they invigorate the mind in the form of a rampant lion

or elephant.

39. The ignorant foster their hopes of heaven on the death

of their bodies; as the farmer expects a plenteous harvest, from

his well cultivated fields (i.e. expectation of future heaven

is vain, by means of ceremonial acts in life).

40. The greedy hell-hounds are glad to look upon the ignorant,

that are fast-bound in the coils of their serpentine desires;

as the thirsty peacocks are pleased to gaze on the black clouds,

that rise before their eyes in the rainy season.

41. These beauties with their glancing eyes, resembling the

fluttering bees of summer, and with lips blooming as the new[Pg 27]

blown leaves of flowers; are flaunting to catch hold of ignorant

men; as poisonous plants are displayed, to lay hold on ignorant

flies.

42. The plant of desire, which shoots out of the goodly soil

of ignorant minds, shelters the flying passions under its shady

foliage; as the coral plants foster the coral insects in them. (The

corallines are known to be the formation of coral insects).

43. Enmity is like a wild fire, it consumes the arbour of the

body, and lets out the smoke through the orifice of the mouth

in the desert land of the heart, and exhibits the rose of the heath

as the burning cinders.

44. The mind of the ignorant is as a lake of envy, covered

with the leaves of spite and calumny: jealousy is its lotus-bed,

and the anxious thoughts are as the bees continually fluttering

thereupon.

45. The ignorant man that is subjected to repeated births,

and is rising and falling as waves in the tumultuous ocean of this

world, is exposed also to repeated deaths: and the burning fire

which engulphs his dead body, is as in the submarine fire of this sea.

46. The ignorant are exposed to repeated births, attended

by the vicissitudes of childhood, youth, manhood and old age,

and followed at last by a painful death and cremation of the

beloved body on the funeral pile.

47. The ignorant body is like a diving bucket, tied by the

rope of transmigration to the Hydraulic machine of acts; to be

plunged and lifted over again, in and over the dirty pool of this

world.

48. This world which is a plane pavement and but narrow

hole (lit., a cow foot-cave) to the wise, by their unconsciousness

of it; appears as a boundless and unfathomable sea to the

ignorant, owing to their great concern about it. (The wise think

lightly of the world; but the worldly take it heavily upon themselves).

49. The ignorant are devoid of their eye-sight, to look out

beyond their limited circle; as the birds long confined in their

cages, have no mind to fly out of them.

50. The revolution of repeated births, is like the constant rotation[Pg 28]

of the wheel of a chariot; and there is no body that is able

to stop their motion, by restraining his earthly desires; which

are ever turning as the spokes affixed to nave of the heart.

51. The ignorant wander at large, about the wide extended

earth; as huntsmen rove amidst the forest, in search of their

prey; until they become a prey at the hand of death, and make

the members of their bodies as morsels, to the vultures of

their sensual appetites.

52. The sights of these mountainous bodies, and of these

material forms made of earthly flesh, are mistaken by the

ignorant for realities; as they mistake the figures in painting for

real persons.

53. How flourishing is the arbour of this delusion, which is

fraught with the endless objects of our erroneous imagination;

and hath stretched out these innumerable worlds from our ignorance

of them.

54. How flourishing is the kalpa tree or all fruitful arbour

of delusion; which is ever fraught with endless objects of our

imaginary desire, and stretches out the infinite worlds to our

erroneous conception as its leaves.

55. Here our prurient minds like birds of variegated colours,

rest and remain and sit and sport, in and all about this arbour.

56. Our acts are the roots of our repeated births as the stem of

the tree is of its shoots; our prosperity and properties are the

flowers of this arbor, and our virtues and vices are as its fruits

of good and evil.

57. Our wives are as the tender plants, that thrive best under

the moon-light of delusion; and are the most beautiful things to

behold in this desert land of the earth.

58. As the darkness of ignorance prevails over the mind,

soon after the setting of the sun light of reason; there rises the

full moon of errors in the empty mind, with all her changing

phases of repeated births. (This refers to the dark ages of Puránic

or mythological fictions, and also to the Dárshanic or philosophical

systems which succeeded the age of Vedántic light, and were

full of changeable doctrines, like the phases of the moon; whence

she is styled dwija or mistress of digits. There is another[Pg 29]

figure of equivocation in the word doshah, meaning the night as

well as the defect of ignorance).

59. It is under the influence of the cooling moon-light of

ignorance; that our minds foster the fond desire of worldly enjoyments;

and like the chakora birds of night, drink their fill of

delight as ambrosial moon-beams. (The ignorant are fond of

pleasures, and where ignorance is bliss, it is foolish to be wise).

60. It is under this delusion, that men view their beloved

ones as buds of roses and lotuses, and their loose glancing eyes, as

the black bees fluttering at random; they see the sable clouds in

the braids and locks of their hair, and a glistening fire in their

glowing bosoms and breasts.

61. It is delusion, O Ráma! that depicts the fairies with the

beams of fair moon-light nights; though they are viewed by

the wise, in their true light of being as foul as the darkest

midnight.

62. Know Ráma, the pleasures of the world, to be as the pernicious

fruits of ignorance; which are pleasant to taste at first,

but prove to be full of bitter gall at last. It is therefore better

to destroy this baneful arbour, than to lose the life and soul by

the mortal taste of its fruits. (It is the fruit of the tree of ignorance

rather than that of knowledge, which brought death into

the world and all our woe. Milton).

[Pg 30]

CHAPTER VII.

Argument:—The effects of ignorance, shown in the evils brought on

by our vain desires and fallacies or erroneous judgments.

VASISISHTA continued. These beauties that are so decorated

with precious gems and jewels, and embellished with the

strings of brilliant pearls, are as the playful billows in the milky

ocean of the moon-beams of our fond desires.

2. The sidelong looks of the beautiful eyes in their faces,

look like a cluster of black bees, sitting on the pericarp of a full

blown lotus.

3. These beauties appear as charming, to the enslaved minds

of deluded men; and as the vernal flowers which are strewn

upon the ground in forest lands.

4. Their comely persons which are compared with the moon,

the lotus flower, and sandal paste for their coolness by fascinated

minds; are viewed as indifferently by the wise, as by the insensible

beasts which make a prey of them. (Lit. by the rapacious

wolves and dogs and vultures which devour them).

5. Their swollen breasts which are compared with lotus-buds,

ripe pomegranates and cups of gold, are viewed by the wise as a

lump of flesh and blood and nauseous liquor.

6. Their fleshy lips, distilling the impure saliva and spittle,

are said to exude with ambrosial honey, and to bear resemblance

with the ruby and coral and vimba fruits.

7. Their arms with the crooked joints of the wrists and

loins, and composed of hard bones in the inside, are compared

with creeping plants, by their infatuated admirers and erotic

poets.

8. Their thick thighs are likened to the stems of lumpish

plantain trees, and the decorations of their protuberant breasts,

are resembled to the strings of flowers, hung upon the turrets

of temples.

9. Women are pleasant at first, but become quarrelsome[Pg 31]

afterwards; and then fly away in haste, like the goddess of

fortune; and yet they are desired by the ignorant. (But when

the old woman frets, let her go alone).

10. The minds of the ignorant, are subject to many pains

and pleasures in this life; and the forest of their misdeeds,

shoots forth in a thousand branches, bearing the woeful fruits

of misery only. (The tree of sin brought death into the world

and all our woe. Milton).

11. The ignorant are fast bound in the net of their folly,

and their ritual functions are the ropes, that lead them to the

prison-house of the world. The words of their lips, like the

mantras and musical words of their mouths, are the more for

their bewilderment. (The ignorant are enslaved by their ritualistic

rites; but the Sages are enfranchised by their spiritual

knowledge).

12. The overspreading mist of ignorance, stretches out a

maze of ceremonial rites, and envelopes the minds of common

people in utter darkness; as the river Yamuná overflows its

banks with its dark waters.

13. The lives of the ignorant, which are so pleasant with

their tender affections, turn out as bitter as the juice of hemlock,

when the affections are cut off by the strong hand of death (i.e.,

the pleasures of life are embittered by the loss of relatives).

14. The senseless rabble are driven and carried away, like

the withered and shattered leaves of trees, by the ever blowing

winds of their pursuits; which scatter them all about as the dregs

of earth, and bespatter them with the dirt and dust of their sins.

15. All the world is as a ripe fruit in the mouth of death,

whose voracious belly is never filled with all its ravages, for

millions and millions of kalpa ages. (The womb of death is never

full).

16. Men are as the cold bodies and creeping reptiles of the

earth, and they crawl and creep continually in their crooked

course, by breathing the vital air, as the snakes live upon the

current air. (Serpents are said to live a long time without food,

simply by inhaling the open air).

17. The time of youth passes as a dark night, without the[Pg 32]

moon-light of reason; and is infested by the ghosts of wicked

thoughts and evil desires.

18. The flippant tongue within the mouth, becomes faint

with cringing flattery; as the pistil rising from the seed vessel,

becomes languid under the freezing frost.

19. Poverty branches out like the thorny Sálmali tree, in a

thousand branches of misery, distress, sorrow, sickness, and

all kinds of woe to human beings. (Poverty is the root of all

evils in life).

20. Concealed covetousness like the unseen bird of night, is

hidden within the hollow cavity of the human heart, resembling

the stunted chaitya trees of mendicants; and then it shrieks and

hoots out from there, during the dark night of delusion which

has overspread the sphere of the mind.

21. Old age lays hold on youth by the ears, as the old cat

seizes on the mouse, and devours its prey after sporting with it

for a long while.

22. The accumulation of unsubstantial materials, which causes

the formation of the stupendous world, is taken for real substantiality

by the unwise; as the foaming froths and ice-bergs in

the sea, are thought to be solid rocks by the ignorant sailor. (So

all potential existences of the Vedantist, are sober realities of

the positive philosophy).

23. The world appears as a beautiful arbour, glowing with

the blooming blossoms of Divine light; which is displayed over

it; and the belief of its reality, is the plant which is fraught with

the fruitage of all our actions and duties. (The world is believed

as the garden of the actions of worldly men, but the wise are

averse to actions and their results).

24. The great edifice of the world, is supported by the pillars

of its mountains, under its root of the great vault of heaven;

and the sun and moon are the great gateways to this pavilion.

(The sun and moon are believed by some as the doors leading the

pious souls to heaven).

25. The world resembles a large lake, over which the vital

breaths are flying as swarms of bees on the lotus-beds of the

living body; and exhaling the sweets which are stored in the cell[Pg 33]

of the heart (i.e., the breath of life wafts away the sweets

of the immortal soul).

26. The blue vault of heaven appears as a spacious and elevated

dome to the ignorant who think it to contain all the worlds,

which are enlightened by the light of the sun situated in the

midst. But it is an empty sphere, and so the other worlds beyond

the solar system, to which the solar light doth never reach.